Monday, December 22, 2014

Well, yet another year has come and gone over here at Four on the Floor. Today's Monday Morning Paradiddle will be my last post for 2014. It's now time to kick back, relax, enjoy some eggnog and catch up on a few things before the big man arrives on December 25th. In the meantime, here's a few interesting things making the rounds around the office:

- Somebody was quite clever and compiled all these isolated drum tracks from some classic rock tunes:

Now if someone were to go to all the trouble and do the same with the likes of Tony Williams, Elvin Jones, Max Roach, Philly Joe Jones, etc. I will personally buy them lunch for all their trouble! Just sayin'...

- Scott K. Fish, former managing editor of Modern Drummer magazine, continues to maintain a fascinating blog with many great articles and interviews with the greats. Be sure to check out his blog Life Beyond the Cymbals at https://scottkfish.wordpress.com. In particular, his four-part series on Joe Morello, remembering Buddy Rich, is really worth reading.

- I've received a lot of positive comments with regards to my previous posts about the benefit of playing and practicing along with recordings to help develop your time and musicality as a drummer. Here's a few more ideas from you, the reader. Thank you for your suggestions!

- I'm really digging the collection of films posted on the Alan Lomax channel over at youtube.com. The amount of music and culture that this man documented is shocking. I've watched this one, in particular, many, many times....Here's Othar Turner and The Rising Sun Fife & Drum Band playing "The Call":

I'm not sure this really qualifies as being "second line", it's something related, but definitely something different too and I really dig it. This is a real lesson on how to make the snare drum groove.

- Here's my man Lewis Nash from a recent gig at New York's Smoke:

- And Gregory Hutchinson lays it down with a pair of brushes:

Apparently Hutch has some on-line lessons coming our way so be on the lookout.

- I've been a fan of Joe Farnsworth's since first seeing him at Smoke with Benny Golson during the late 90s in New York City. Check out what he can do with small drum set-up, sans toms and only one cymbal.

Well now, I guess it's time for me to re-visit my Wilcoxin and the Rudiment Ritual me thinks!

Thursday, December 18, 2014

My last post on the importance of playing along with recordings generated a few comments. Here's a few other suggestions from you, the reader, for things to practice and play along with:

Christian McBride - "Fingerpainting: The Music of Herbie Hancock"

Christian McBride/Roy Hargrove/Stephen Scott - "Parker's Mood"

John Coltrane - "Coltrane Plays the Blues"
(apparently the drums are only on one channel so you can mix them out...)

Mike Murley/Ed Bickert/Steve Wallace - "Live at the Senator"

Any of Ahmad Jamal's 1950s drummer-less recordings
(thank you Todd Bishop from Cruiseship Drummer for this great suggestion!)

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Also, there are a few other very good educational resources out there that I neglected to mention in my previous post:

Tommy Igoe's "Groove Essentials" series apparently has many very good tracks to play with.

John Riley's "The Art of Bop Drumming" and "Beyond Bop Drumming" both have excellent play-along tracks contained on the accompanying CDs. I've used these both extensively over the years and quite like them.

This one recently showed up in my mailbox and I look forward to checking this resource out in the coming weeks:

This one is unique in that there are two sets of tracks of each tune so you can hear Hart's drumming, interpretation and approach (with accompanying transcriptions) on one set of tracks and then try out your own ideas out on a second set of tracks without the drums (many of the tracks on John Riley's CDs from his books also follow the same approach, however minus the transcriptions). I hope to play with Dave Liebman someday, so maybe this one might be a good start ; )

Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Many years ago, when I was just getting started in this whole business of Jazz drumming, Toronto drummer Ted Warren gave me a great piece of advice that I still think about quite a bit and has been an invaluable tool in my development as a musician. I still incorporate this into my regular practice sessions and recommend it to all my students.

This brilliant piece of wisdom that Ted laid on me was that I spend some serious time practicing along with recordings of other great Jazz drummers, and any recordings in general that I enjoy listening to, in order to get my sense of time together.

I like to practice my rudiments and basic beats and patterns along with a metronome and we should obviously all spend time with one in order to develop a consistent sense of time. But in terms of developing my timekeeping AND musical sensibilities, playing along with recordings (both with and without drummers) has been and will always continue to be an invaluable learning tool.

Of course metronomes won't speed up or slow down and we need this steady reference point in order to learn how to play time in a steady, consistent way. But there is a lot to be said for learning to play in a way where, perhaps, the tempos do, in fact, move a little (and this isn't necessarily a bad thing....Ted called this the "human" element of timekeeping) and, importantly, how to play in the context of a musical performance. Really you can and should be able to practice playing at least a simple beat along with any recording. It really forces to you listen intensely and develop your listening skills (especially if the bass and/or drums are low in the mix).

For myself, playing with any recordings of Thelonious Monk's (ex. Monk's Dream) or Miles Davis (ex. Workin', Cookin', Steamin' and Relaxin') are always recordings that I find myself going back to (among many others.)

Also, there is a lot to be said for playing along with a given drummer, trying to get "inside the head" of that particular drummer's style. Trying to match, to a certain extent, the cymbal phrasing, style and feeling of another drummer is only going to benefit your own playing and development.

In terms of playing along with drummer-less recordings, there are many out there worth practicing along with as well.

Adam Nussbaum recommended to me playing along any of the early Nat King Cole trio recordings.

Years ago in a clinic with the Ed Shaughnessy, he recommended this particular Oscar Peterson record:

In the back of his book "The Art of Bop Drumming", John Riley recommends the following drummer-less albums to play-along with:

Jim Hall "Jazz Guitar"

Wynton Kelly "Piano"

Monty Alexander/Ray Brown/Herb Ellis "Triple Threat"

Oscar Peterson "The Trio"

Bill Evans "Undercurrent" and "Intuition"

Personally I recently discovered this album and have been enjoying this quite a bit (thank you Brad Shigeta for hipping me to this one...):

The interesting thing about playing with albums that don't have a drummer is that you can experiment with injecting your own ideas and stylistic interpretation without concerning yourself about identifying with the existing drummer on a particular track. Plus it's a great way to learn tunes, expand your repertoire and develop a "functional" approach to timekeeping (by observing the form of the tune, the melody, etc.)

Sometimes even just playing quarter notes on the ride cymbal along with one of these records will give your playing a real boost. Start simple and then add different parts of the drum set and layers of rhythmic complexity, all while trying to blend in with the "band."

For example, here's some interesting footage of Carl Allen playing along with a Gary Burton/Chick Corea duet and coming up with, I think, some pretty interesting conclusions:

A few other excellent drummer-less resources that I personally like to practice along with and highly recommend these days include:

And another thing: use your headphones but try to play along with all these resources while playing them through speakers too. You'll have to simplify, play really quiet and really focus on what you are playing along with. And that's a good thing!

So the next time you are wondering what to practice, put on a favourite recording and learn from the greats!

This is a blog about jazz, jazz drumming and all things unrelated. Thanks for stopping by!

A Bit About Me...

Jonathan McCaslin was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba and raised in Regina, Saskatchewan. Jonathan began playing the drums at the age of nine. He progressed through the Regina Lions Junior Band and the music program at his high school, Campbell Collegiate, soon developing a passion for playing the drums and jazz.Ultimately, Jon's interest in music led him to enroll in the Jazz Studies program at McGill University, graduating with distinction in 1999.

While at McGill Jon had the opportunity to study with some of the finest jazz educators in the country including Gordon Foote, Kevin Dean, Jan Jarcyzk, Chris McCann, Andre White, Michel Lambert and Dave Laing. He also attended the prestigious summer jazz workshop presented by the Banff Centre for the Arts in 1997, where he performed with Canadian jazz greats Hugh Fraser, Don Thompson and Kenny Wheeler.

In the spring of 2002 McCaslin completed his Master's in Jazz Studies at McGill University where he studied jazz drumming, improvisation and composition.

In January 2003 Jon released his debut CD, “McCallum’s Island”.Featuring his quintet, the CD contains an exciting collection of McCaslin’s original compositions, featuring himself and his band.The release of this CD was followed by a twenty-day tour of Western Canada, performing to enthusiastic, capacity audiences. During March of 2003 Jonathan was the recipient of a fellowship from the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and attended the “Betty Carter Jazz Ahead” residency in Washington, D.C. Along with twenty other distinguished young jazz artists, McCaslin was featured with such jazz icons as Terence Blanchard, Carmen Lundy, Winard Harper, Curtis Fuller and John Clayton.

McCaslin’s quintet performed at the 2003 edition of the Montreal International Jazz Festival and was nominated for the General Motors Grand Prix du Festival (awarded to the most outstanding Canadian group). From 2004 until 2006, Jon toured North America, Asia and Europe with the high-energy, critically acclaimed music production troupe “Barrage”. Featuring a cast of seven world-class fiddlers and a four-piece band, this dynamic show featured high-energy music and fiddle traditions from around the world set to upbeat choreography and movement.

In 2015, Dr. McCaslin received his Doctorate through the University of Toronto and completed his dissertation on the conceptualization of contemporary melodic jazz drumming. He is currently based in Calgary, Alberta where he maintains a busy performing and teaching schedule across Canada.